Marcus Hutchins signed a plea agreement that was entered today. He pleads guilty to two charges of conspiracy, and the other eight charges are dismissed. If I’m doing the math on the sentencing guidelines correctly, he may be facing 6-12 months, though the government has the option of making a significant upward departure.

I’m still buried in the Mueller Report, so won’t have more on this now. It’s a sad result. And testament that justice is a lot different for people like MalwareTech than for Don Jr.

Today I am reflecting on events that happened on this date from a historical perspective. Partly because it has significance to my own micro-dot, nanosecond place in the time/space continuum. Partly because of the intensity of current events. Partly because it is a gusty, overcast, potentially rainy day here. But mostly because extraordinary things happened on this date before, and now our own current events will add to them.

That’s how multidimensional and nuanced life is. It is quantum, not binary. Something else to keep in mind: whether we are practical or not, we will evolve ourselves to death. Maybe some future generations will have minds that are better able to sort it all out. Maybe they will be more creative and cooperative.

Until then, it is instructive and engaging to take a look at snapshots of the past:

How kind and thoughtful and greatly appreciated. Not a birthday but memorable just the same. BTW, I worked on an editorial project for a Bowker reference book in Minneapolis in 1976. I was working at Kent State at the time as a film cataloger. My boss sent me up there because he didn’t want to go. I was lucky to have friends there, too. One of them later became the Dean of the School of Library Science at KSU. It’s a small world, as they like to say here.

Is there a chronological tab for a small world?
My first son was born 1967 and the first note read was that he would share a birthdate with Hitler. The other coincidences grew gradually.
Let us hope friends are more relevant than coincidences in time or place, but television and now Twitter make the world more difficult for all the generations.

The 1970’s…Blues, Sweat and Ashes.
Two months (to the day) after the Kent State shootings, 15 60 75 booked their first gig at The Kove on Water Street in Kent, Ohio. So begins the story of two brothers, and one hell of a group of musicians. Terry Hynde was twenty-four years old, Bob Kidney was twenty-three.

I was a huge fan of The Pretenders and Chrissy’s low and forceful voice. she was from Akron, which was what this song was about. I grew up in Pittsburgh, another Rust Belt city but one that has been completely transformed since then.

I lived in Akron just before I moved south. My roommate was a journalist at the Akron Beacon Journal. My mom was born there. I was working in the University of Akron’s Law School library just before I moved.

Back in the day, an artist friend of mine from Morgantown, WV and I visited a museum in Pittsburgh. We stayed overnight in a convent. Her brother once dated Joni Mitchell who wrote the song, “Morning Morgantown. “

I made several trips to visit my friend there in WV. I didn’t know it at the time, but my mom’s great grandfather was Ephraim Bee. He named one of his daughters West Virginia because she was born on the day that Lincoln initiated action to separate WV from VA.

Later Ephraim Bee was a representative in the 1st WV legislature. It is also thought that he ran a station on the Underground Railroad. It seems he was a lively character.

Didn’t mean to babble so much. Hope you don’t mind. I was a free spirit in my youth…

My wife’s birthday is April 19, and she worked in the news biz all her working life. So she is well aware of all the coincidental things associated with her birthday.

I have trouble tracking dates, and so was operating with the belief that the 19th was Saturday. Fortunately, when I realized that FRiday was the 19th — I had the flowers, fancy food (Lobster Bisque, shrimp, salad fixings) and a present that hit her fancy, a mechanical computer keyboard with keys like those on 1957 Linotypes setting hot type in a composing room for a newspaper. All in hand.

She was delighted with the food, the gadget, and the FR champagne. A relief!

An article I just read advised he is 23 and the “crime” he committed was years earlier, which would have made him a minor. why would he go to jail? Of course in Canada you’re tried in juvenile court if you’re 17 and under even if they don’t charge you until you’re an adult.

As I recall this case, it seemed that Hutchins linked to a site where one might obtain a hacking program? Whereas, Trump campaign linked to wikileaks the site of stolen emails. The evidence in the hutchins case was the email link I thought.

So why is it that the Mueller team can not find a conspiracy with: 1) Trump calls for Russian hacking; and 2) then the hacking occurs; and 3) then the results of the hacking, which the trump campaign had asked for are released by Wikileaks and 4) linked to by trump, referred to by trump (over and over again)? My small little mind can not see how this is not evidence of a conspiracy to hack

This Hutchins case seems to be all the fuel the Justice department needs for precedent.